LC 

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UC-NRLF 


U  printed  from  the  Volume  of  ]  TI0N 

tly  IQ12 

C      THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY,  THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOL,  AND 
THE  SOCIAL  CENTER  MOVEMENT 

ARTHUR   E.   BOSTWICK,   LIBRARIAN,   PUBLIC   LIBRARY,   ST.   LOUIS,   MO. 

The  center  of  a  geometrical  figure  is  important,  not  for  its  size  and 
content,  but  for  its  position— not  for  what  it  is  in  itself,  but  for  its  relations 
to  the  other  elements  of  the  figure.  And  words  used  with  derived  meanings 
are  used  best  when  their  original  significations  are  kept  in  mind.  The 
business  center  of  a  city  does  not  contain  all  of  that  city's  commercial 
activity;  when  we  speak  of  the  church  as  a  religious  center,  we  do  not 
mean  that  there  is  to  be  no  religious  activity  in  the  home  or  in  other  walks 
of  life;  as  for  the  center  of  population  of  a  large  and  populous  country, 
it  may  be  out  in  the  prairie  where  neither  man  nor  his  dwellings  are  to  be 
seen.  All  these  centers  are  what  they  are  because  of  certain  relationships. 
It  is  so  with  a  social  center.  But  social  relationships  cover  a  wide  field. 
The  relationships  of  business,  of  religion,  even  of  mere  coexistence,  are 
all  social.  May  we  have  a  center  for  so  wide  a  range  of  activities  ?  Even 
the  narrower  relations  of  business  or  of  religion  tend  to  form  subsidiary 
groups  and  to  multiply  subsidiary  centers.  In  a  large  city  we  may  have 
not  only  a  general  business  center  but  centers  of  the  real  estate  business, 
of  the  hardware  or  textile  trades,  and  so  on.  Our  religious  affiliations 
condense  into  denominational  centers. 

In  the  district  of  a  large  city  where  newly  arrived  foreign  immigrants 
gather,  you  will  be  shown  the  group  of  blocks  where  the  Poles  or  the  Hun- 
[  nans  nave  segregated  themselves  from  the  rest,  and  even  within  these, 
tie  houses  where  dwell  families  from  a  particular  province  or  even  from 
one  definite  city  or  village.  Man  is  social,  but  he  is  socially  clannish,  and 
the  broadest  is  not  so  much  he  who  refuses  to  recognize  these  clan  or  caste 
relationships  as  he  who  enters  into  the  largest  number  of  them — he  who 
keeps  in  touch  with  his  childhood  home,  has  a  wide  acquaintance  among 
those  of  his  own  religious  faith  and  of  his  chosen  business  or  profession, 
keeps  up  his  old  college  friendships,  is  interested  in  collecting  coins  or 
paintings  and  knows  all  the  other  collectors,  is  active  in  civic  and  charitable 
societies,  takes  an  interest  in  education  and  educators,  and  so  on.  The 
social  democracy  that  should  succeed  in  abolishing  all  these  groups  or 
leveling  them — that  should  recognize  no  relationships  but  the  broader 
ones  that  underly  all  human  effort  and  feeling — the  touches  of  nature  that 
make  the  whole  world  kin — would  be  barren  indeed. 

We  cannot  spare  these  fundamentals;  we  could  not  get  rid  of  them  if 
we  would;  but  civilization  advances  by  building  upon  them,  and  to  do  away 
with  these  additions  would  be  like  destroying  a  city  to  get  at  its  founda- 
tions, in  the  vain  hope  of  securing  some  wide-reaching  result  in  economics 
cr  aesthetics.  Occupying  a  foremost  place  among  these  groupings  is  the 
large  division  embracing  our  educational  activities.     And  these  are  social 

240 


Sessions]      THE  LTBMRYj:THE  SCHOOL,  AND  THE  SOCIAL  CENTER 


2.. 


not  only  in  the  broad  sense,  but  also  in  the  narrower.  The  intercourse  of 
student  with  student  in  the  school  and  even  of  reader  with  reader  in  the 
library,  especially  in  such  departments  as  the  children's  room,  is  so  obviously 
that  of  society  that  we  need  dwell  on  it  no  further. 

This  intercourse,  while  a  necessary  incident  of  education  in  the  mass, 
as  only  an  incident.  It  is  sufficiently  obtrusive,  however,  to  make  it 
evident  that  any  use  of  school  or  library  building  for  social  purpose?  h 
fit  and  proper.  There  is  absolutely  nothing  new  nor  strange  about  such 
use.  In  places  that  cannot  afford  separate  buildings  for  these  purposes , 
the  same  edifice  has  often  served  for  church,  schoolhouse,  public  library, 
and  as  assembly  room  for  political  meetings,  amateur  theatricals,  and 
juvenile  debating  societies.  The  propriety  of  all  this  has  never  been 
questioned  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  it  should  not  be  as  proper  in  a  town 
of  500,000  inhabitants  as  in  one  of  500.  The  incidence  of  the  cost  is  a 
matter  of  detail.  Why  should  such  purely  social  use  of  these  educational 
buildings — always  common  in  small  towns — have  been  allowed  to  fall 
into  abeyance  in  the  larger  ones?  It  is  hard  to  say;  but  with  the  recent 
great  improvements  in  construction,  the  building  of  schools  and  libraries 
that  are  models  of  beauty,  comfort,  and  convenience,  there  has  arisen  a 
not  unnatural  feeling  in  the  public  that  all  this  public  property  should  be 
put  to  fuller  use.  Why  should  children  be  forced  to  dance  on  the  street 
or  in  some  place  of  sordid  association  when  comfortable  and  convenient 
halls  in  library  or  school  are  closed  and  unoccupied?  Why  should  the 
local  debating  club,  the  mothers'  meeting — -nay,  why  should  the  political 
ward  meeting  be  barred  out?  Side  by  side  with  this  trend  of  public 
opinion  there  has  been  an  awakening  realization  on  the  part  of  many 
connected  with  these  institutions  that  they  themselves  might  benefit  by 
such  extended  use. 

Probably  this  realization  has  come  earlier  and  more  fully  to  the  library, 
because  its  educational  function  is  directed  so  much  more  upon  adults. 
The  library  is  coming  to  be  our  great  continuation  school — an  institution 
of  learning  with  an  infinity  of  purely  optional  courses.  It  may  open  its 
doors  to  any  form  of  adult  social  activity. 

There  are  forms  of  activity  proper  to  a  social  center  that  require  special 
apparatus  or  equipment.  These  may  be  furnished  in  a  building  erected 
for  the  purpose,  as  are  the  Chicago  fieldhouses.  Here  we  have  swimming- 
pools,  gymnasiums  for  men  and  for  women,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  A 
branch  library  is  included  and  some  would  house  the  school  also  under  the 
same  roof.  We  may  have  to  wait  long  for  the  general  adoption  of  such  a 
composite  social  center.  Our  immediate  problem  is  to  supply  an  immediate 
need  by  using  means  directly  at  our  disposal.  And  it  is  remarkable  how 
many  kinds  of  neighborhood  activity  may  take  place  in  a  room  unprovided 
with  any  special  equipment.  A  brief  glance  over  our  own  records  for  only 
a  few  months  past  enables  me  to  classify  them  roughly  as  athletic  or  out- 


242  NATIONAL  EDUCATION  ASSOCIATION  (General 

door,  purely  social,  educational,  debating,  political,  labor,  musical,  religious, 
charitable  or  civic,  and  expository,  besides  many  that  defy  or  elude 
classification. 

The  athletic  or  outdoor  organizations  include  the  various  turning  or 
gymnastic  clubs  and  the  Boy  and  Girl  Scouts;  the  social  organizations 
embrace  dancing-classes,  "welfare"  associations,  alumni  and  graduate 
clubs  of  schools  and  colleges,  and  dramatic  clubs;  the  educational,  which 
are  very  numerous,  reading  circles,  literary  clubs  galore,  free  classes  in 
chemistry,  French,  psychology,  philosophy,  etc.,  and  all  such  organiza- 
tions as  the  Jewish  Culture  Club,  the  Young  People's  Ethical  Society, 
the  Longan  Parliamentary  Class,  and  the  Industrial  and  Business  Women's 
Educational  leagues.  Religious  bodies  are  parish  meetings,  committees 
of  mission  boards,  and  such  organizations  as  the  Theosophical  Society; 
charitable  or  civic  activities  include  the  National  Conference  of  Day 
Nurseries,  the  Central  Council  of  Civic  Agencies,  the  W.C.T.U.,  play- 
ground rehearsals  for  the  Child  Welfare  Exhibit,  and  the  Business  Men's 
Association,  and  the  Advertising  Men's  League;  musical  organizations 
embrace  St.  Paul's  Musical  Assembly,  the  Tuesday  Choral  Club,  etc. 
Among  exhibitions  are  local  affairs  such  as  wild  flower  shows,  an  exhibit 
of  birdhouses,  collections  from  the  Educational  Museum,  the  Civic  League's 
Municipal  Exhibit,  selected  screens  from  the  Child  Welfare  Exhibit,  and 
the  prize-winners  from  the  St.  Louis  Art  Exhibit  held  in  the  art  room 
of  our  central  library.  Then  we  have  the  Queen  Hedwig  Branch,  the 
Clay  School  Picnic  Association,  the  Aero  Club,  the  Lithuanian  Club, 
the  Philotechne  Club,  the  Fathers'  Club,  and  the  United  Spanish  War 
Veterans. 

I  trust  you  will  not  call  upon  me  to  explain  the  objects  of  some  of 
these,  as  such  a  demand  might  cause  me  embarrassment — not  because 
their  aims  are  unworthy,  but  because  these  are  skillfully  obscured  by 
their  names.  If  anyone  believes  that  there  is  a  limit  to  the  capacity  of 
the  human  race  for  forming  groups  and  subgroups  on  <a  moment's  notice, 
for  any  reason  or  for  no  reason  at  all,  I  would  refer  him  to  our  assembly 
room  and  clubroom  records;  and  he. would  find,  I  think,  that  these  are 
typical  of  every  large  library  offering  the  use  of  such  rooms  somewhat 
freely. 

It  will  be  noted  that  the  library  takes  no  part  in  organizing  or  operating 
any  of  these  activities;  it  does  not  have  to  do  so. 

The  successful  leader  is  he  who  repairs  to  a  hill  and  raises  his  standard, 
knowing  that  at  sight  of  it  followers  will  flock  around  him.  When  you 
drop  a  tiny  crystal  into  a  solution,  the  atoms  all  rush  to  it  naturally:  there 

io  effort  or  compulsion  except  that  of  the  aptitudes  that  their  Creator 
has  implanted  in  them.  So  it  is  with  all  centers,  business  or  religious  or 
social.  No  one  instituted  a  campaign  to  locate  the  business  center  of  a 
city  at  precisely  such  a  square  or  corner.    Things  aggregate,  and  the  point 

311754 


Sessions]      THE  LIBRARY,  THE  SCHOOL,  AND  THE  SOCIAL  CENTER         243 

to  which  they  tend  is  their  center;  they  make  it,  it  does  not  make  them. 
The  leader  on  a  hill  is  a  leader  because  he  has  followers;  without  them  he 
would  be  but  a  lone  warrior.  The  school  or  the  library  that  says  proudly 
to  itself,  "Go  to;  I  will  be  a  social  center,"  may  find  itself-  in  the  same 
lonely  position.  It  can  offer  an  opportunity:  that  is  all.  It  can  offer 
houseroom  to  clubs,  organizations,  and  groups  of  all  kinds,  whether  per- 
manent or  temporary,  large  or  small,  but  its  usefulness  as  a  social  center 
depends  largely  on  the  existence  of  these  and  on  their  desire  for  a  meeting- 
place.  We  have  in  St.  Louis  six  branch  libraries  with  assembly  rooms 
and  clubrooms— in  all  a  dozen  or  so.  I  have  before  me  the  calendar  for 
a  single  week  and  I  find  55  engagements,  running  from  24  at  one  branch 
down  thru  13,  8,  6,  and  3  to  one.  If  I  had  before  me  only  the  largest 
number  I  should  conclude  that  branch  libraries  as  social  centers  were  a 
howling  success;  if  only  the  smallest,  I  should  say  that  they  were  dismal 
failures.  Why  the  difference  ?  For  the  same  reason  that  the  leader  who 
displays  his  standard  may  or  may  not  be  surrounded  with  eager  " flocking" 
followers.  There  may  be  no  one  within  earshot,  or  they  may  have  no 
stomach  for  the  war,  or  they  may  not  be  interested  in  the  cause  that  he 
represents.  Or  again,  he  may  not  shout  loud  or  persuasively  enough, 
or  his  standard  may  not  be  attractive  enough  in  form  or  color,  or  mounted 
on  a  sufficiently  high  staff. 

I  have  said  that  all  we  can  offer  is  opportunity;  to  change  our  figure, 
we  can  furnish  the  drinking-fountain — thirst  must  bring  the  horse  to  it. 
But  we  must  not  forget  that  we  offer  our  opportunity  in  vain  unless  we  are 
sure  that  everyone  who  might  grasp  it  realizes  our  offer  and  what  it  means. 

Here  is  the  chance  for  personal  endeavor.  If  the  young  people  in  a 
neighborhood  continue  to  hold  their  social  meetings  over  a  saloon  when 
the  branch  library  or  the  school  is  perfectly  willing  to  offer  its  a  embly 
room,  it  is  pretty  certain  that  they  do  not  understand  that  offer,  or  that 
they  mistrust  its  sincerity,  or  that  there  is  something  wrong  that  might 
be  remedied  by  personal  effort.  In  the  one  of  our  branches  that  is  most 
used  by  organizations  there  is  this  personal  touch.  But  I  should  hesitate 
to  say  that  the  others  do  not  have  it  too.  There  are  plenty  of  organiza- 
tions near  this  busiest  library  and  there  are  no  other  good  places  for  them 
to  meet.  In  the  neighborhood  of  some  other  branches  there  are  other 
meeting-places,  and  elsewhere,  perhaps,  the  social  instinct  is  not  so  strong, 
or  at  any  rate  the  effort  to  organize  is  lacking.  Should  the  librarian  step 
out  and  attempt  to  stimulate  this  social  instinct  and  to  guide  this  organizing 
effort  ?     There  is  room  for  difference  of  opinion  here. 

Personally  I  think  that  he  should  not  do  it  directly  and  officially  as  a 
librarian.  He  may  do  it  quietly  and  unobtrusively  like  any  other  private 
citizen,  but  he  needs  all  his  efforts,  all  his  influence,  to  bring  the  book  and 
the  reader  together  in  his  community.  Sometimes  by  doing  this  he  can 
be  doing  the  other  too,  and  he  can  always  do  it  vicariously.     He  should 


244  NATIONAL  EDUCATION  ASSOCIATION  (General 

bear  in  mind  that  the  successful  man  is  not  he  who  does  everything  him- 
self, but  he  who  can  induce  others  to  do  things — to  do  them  in  his  way 
and  to  direct  them  toward  his  ends.  Even  in  the  most  sluggish,  the  most 
indifferent  community  there  are  these  potential  workers  with  enthusiasms 
that  need  only  to  be  awakened  to  be  let  loose  for  good.  The  magic  key 
is  often  in  the  librarian's  girdle,  and  his  free  offer  of  house  room  and  sym- 
pathy, with  good  literature  thrown  in,  will  always  be  of  powerful  assistance 
in  this  kind  of  effort.  He  will  seldom  need  to  do  more  than  to  make  clear 
the  existence  and  the  nature  of  the  opportunity  that  he  offers.  I  know 
that  there  are  some  librarians  and  many  more  teachers  who  hesitate  to 
open  their  doors  in  any  such  way  as  this;  who  are  afraid  that  the  oppor- 
tunities offered  will  be  misused  or  that  the  activities  so  sheltered  will  be 
misjudged  by  the  public.  It  has  shocked  some  persons  that  a  young 
people's  dancing-class  has  been  held,  under  irreproachable  auspices,  in 
one  of  our  branch  libraries;  others  have  been  grieved  to  see  that  political 
ward  meetings  have  taken  place  in  them,  and  that  some  rather  radical 
political  theories  have  been  debated  there.  These  persons  forget  that  a 
library  never  takes  sides.  It  places  on  its  shelves  books  on  the  Civil 
War  from  the  standpoint  of  both  North  and  South,  histories  of  the  great 
religious  controversies  by  both  Catholics  and  Protestants,  ideas  and  theories 
in  science  and  philosophy  from  all  sides  and  at  all  angles.  It  may  give 
room  at  one  time  to  a  young  people's  dancing-class  and  at  another  to  a 
meeting  of  persons  who  condemn  dancing.  Its  walls  may  echo  one  day 
to  the  praises  of  our  tariff  system  and  on  another  to  fierce  denunciations 
of  it. 

These  things  are  all  legitimate  and  it  is  better  that  they  should  take 
place  in  a  library  or  a  school  building  than  in  a  saloon  or  even  in  a  grocery 
store.  The  influence  of  environment  is  gently  pervasive.  I  may  be  wrong, 
but  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  it  is  easier  to  be  a  gentleman  in  a  library, 
whether  in  social  meeting  or  in  political  debate,  than  it  is  in  some  other 
places.  In  one  of  our  branches  there  meets  a  club  of  men  who  would  be 
termed  anarchists  by  some  people.  The  branch  librarian  assures  me  that 
the  brand  of  anarchism  that  they  profess  has  grown  perceptibly  milder 
since  they  have  met  in  the  library.  It  is  getting  to  be  literary,  academic, 
philosophic.  Nourished  in  a  saloon,  with  a  little  injudicious  repression, 
it  might  perhaps  have  borne  fruit  of  bombs  and  dynamite. 

In  this  catholicity  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  library  as  an  educa- 
tional institution  is  a  step  ahead  of  the  school.  Most  teachers  would 
resent  the  imputation  of  partisanship  on  the  part  of  the  school,  and  yet 
it  is  surely  partisan— in  some  ways  rightly  and  inevitably  so.  One  cannot 
veil  explain  both  sides  of  any  question  to  a  child  of  six  and  leave  its  decision 
to  his  judgment.  This  is  obvious;  and  yet  I  cannot  help  thinking  that 
there  is  one-sided  teaching  of  children  who  are  at  least  old  enough  to  know 
that  there  is  another  side,  and  that  the  one-sided  teaching  of  two-sided 


Sessions]      THE  LIBRARY,  THE  SCHOOL,  AND  THE  SOCIAL  CENTER        245 

subjects  might  be  postponed  in  some  cases  until  two-sided  information 
would  be  possible  and  proper.  Where  a  child  is  taught  one  side  and  finds 
out  later  that  there  is  another,  his  resentment  is  apt  to  be  bitter;  it  spoils 
the  educational  effect  of  much  that  he  was  taught  and  injures  the  influence 
of  the  institution  that  taught  him.  My  resentment  is  still  strong  against 
the  teaching  that  hid  from  me  the  southern  viewpoint  concerning  slavery 
and  secession,  the  Catholic  viewpoint  of  what  we  Protestants  call  the 
Reformation— dozens  of  things  omitted  from  textbooks  on  dozens  of  sub- 
jects because  they  did  not  happen  to  meet  the  approval  of  the  textbook 
compiler.  I  am  no  less  an  opponent  of  slavery— I  am  no  less  a  Protestant— 
because  I  know  the  other  side,  but  I  think  I  am  a  better  man  for  knowing 
it,  and  I  think  it  a  thousand  pities  that  there  are  thousands  of  our  fellow- 
citizens,  on  all  sides  of  all  possible  lines,  from  whom  our  educative  processes 
have  hid  even  the  fact  that  there  is  another  side.  This  question,  as  I 
have  said,  does  not  affect  the  library,  and  fortunately  need  not  affect  it. 
And  as  we  are  necessarily  two-sided  in  our  book  material  so  we  can  open 
our  doors  to  free  social  or  neighborhood  use  without  bothering  our  heads 
about  whether  the  users  are  Catholics,  Protestants,  or  Jews;  Democrats, 
Republicans,  or  Socialists;  Christian  Scientists  or  suffragists.  The  library 
hands  out  suffrage  and  anti-suffrage  literature  to  its  users  with  the  same 
smile,  and  if  it  hands  the  anti-suffrage  books  to  the  suffragist,  and  vice 
versa,  both  sides  are  certainly  the  better  for  it. 

I  have  tried  to  make  it  clear  in  what  I  have  said  that  in  this  matter  of 
social  activity,  public  institutions  should  go  as  far  as  they  can  in  furnishing 
facilities  without  taking  upon  themselves  the  burden  of  administration. 
I  believe  fully  in  municipal  ownership  of  all  kinds  of  utilities,  but  rarely 
in  municipal  operation.  Municipal  ownership  safeguards  the  city,  and 
private  or  corporate  operation  avoids  the  numerous  objections  to  close 
municipal  control  of  detail.  So  the  library  authorities  may  retain  sufficient 
control  of  these  social  activities  by  the  power  that  they  have  of  admitting 
them  to  the  parts  of  the  buildings  provided  for  them,  or  of  excluding  them 
at  any  time.  The  activities  themselves  are  better  managed  by  voluntary 
bodies,  and,  as  I  have  said,  there  is  no  indication  that  the  formation  of 
such  bodies  is  on  the  wane.  The  establishment  and  operation  of  a  musical 
or  athletic  club,  a  debating  society,  or  a  Boy  Scouts  company,  are  surely 
quite  as  educational  as  the  activities  themselves  in  which  their  members 
engage.  Do  not  let  us  arrogate  to  ourselves  such  opportunities  as  these. 
I  should  be  inclined  to  take  this  attitude  also  with  regard  to  the  public 
playgrounds,  were  they  not  somewhat  without  the  province  of  this  paper; 
and  I  take  it  very  strongly  with  regard  to  the  public  school.  Throw  open 
the  school  buildings  as  soon  as  you  can,  and  as  freely  as  you  can,  to  every 
legitimate  form  of  social  activity,  but  let  your  relationship  to  this  activity 
be  like  that  of  the  center  to  the  circle — in  it  and  of  it,  but  embracing  no 
part  of  its  areal  content.     So,  I  am  convinced,  will  it  be  best  for  all  of  us — 


246  NATIONAL  EDUCATION  ASSOCIATION  TGeneral 

for  ourselves,  the  administrators  of  public  property,  and  for  the  public, 
the  owning  body  which  is  now  demanding  that  it  shall  not  be  barred  out 
by  its  servants  from  that  property's  freest  and  fullest  use. 


14  DAY  USE  ^ 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 


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LD2lA-40m-8,'71 
(P6572sl0)476-A-32 


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University  of  Calif  ornii 
Berkeley 


